§23. Thomas Bradwardine. X. English Scholars of Paris and Franciscans of Oxford. Vol. 1. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature: An Encyclopedia in Eighteen Volumes. 1907

Reference > Cambridge History > From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance > English Scholars of Paris and Franciscans of Oxford > Thomas Bradwardine

Scholars of Oxford: John Baconthorpe

Richard of Bury

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The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume I. From the Beginnings to the Cycles of Romance.

X. English Scholars of Paris and Franciscans of Oxford.

§ 23. Thomas Bradwardine.

Scholasticism survived in the person of Thomas Bradwardine, who was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury shortly before his death in 1349. Educated at Merton College, Oxford, he expanded his college lectures on theology into a treatise that gained him the title of Doctor profundus. He is respectfully mentioned by Chaucer in company with St. Augustine and Boëthius:

But I ne can not bulte it to the bren,

As can the holy doctour Augustyn,

Or Boë ece, or the bishop of Bradwardyn. 89

In the favourable opinion of his editor, Sir Henry Savile (1618), he derived his philosophy from Aristotle and Plato. His pages abound with quotations from Seneca, Ptolemy, Boëthius and Cassiodorus; but there is reason to believe that all his learning was gleaned from the library of his friend Richard of Bury, to whom he was chaplain in 1335.

Note 89. Canterbury Tales, 15, 248. [ back ]

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Scholars of Oxford: John Baconthorpe

Richard of Bury

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